About Me

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Baked wasp, and a sleepover

Sunday afternoon, I went out to the house, with my mom and dad. Before I started the generator, I checked the oil. That was fine, but what was this thing sitting in the generator case?

Mmmmm, backed mud wasp! I think they made the nest on the muffler. When I ran the generator, it cooked the nest. I suspect they had died in the nest before I ran the generator. I doubt they would have stayed in the generator as it roared to life, and heated up their nest.

We had hauled out the parts for the ventilation house which had not been primed yet, out to the house to let mom give them a proper priming. We set mom up with those, and she continued working on priming boards for the utility room, and on getting these new pieces ready to assemble.

Dad and I checked the pressure on the gas pipe. It was still holding the full pressure we had put in. So it looks like that section is well sealed. We had put in 30 psi, and that should be more than 60 times the pressure it will have when the propane is flowing in it. We worked with the fittings we had on hand, and made note of the next fittings we were going to need, and lengths of the next pieces of pipe to get.

When we stopped for supper, we set up a little picnic in the family room and had a nice little meal, just the three of us.

We continued on into the evening, and dad and I got some more of the panels up in the utility room.

We left the wall section open, where the inspector will have to be able to see the plumbing.

This wall, is where my equipment for the radiant floor will be mounted.

As it got late, mom and dad said their goodbyes, and headed home. I continued for a little while, with mounting some more electrical boxes, and then I set up my bedroom.

I will have to try a better option for a bed. This works fine to stretch out on when you want to take a breather from work, but is not conducive to a good night's sleep. I also had a cricket in the garage, who decided to go into continuous chirp mode around 1am. What a racket! I got some rest, and I was able to get an early start on Monday, but I am not sure whether it was fully worth it. One of the big advantages, was that I left the generator, and the dehumidifiers running overnight. So I got a lot more moisture removed from inside.

I got some more electrical work done, and figured out some electrical boxes I needed to get. Around 10 Monday morning Matt got out there. He helped me and we put some more flashing sealant around the roof box cap edges. I think it is very well sealed to the lower part now. Then I tried to work on sealing up the inside of the roof box. I had a can of spray foam, but with everything in the way, I had to ask Matt to tell me if I had the nozzle pointed where I wanted it. DO NOT use spray polyurethane foam overhead, when you can't see what you are doing! Also, always where rubber gloves when working with that stuff. I spent an hour trying to clean if off of my hands and arms. I even managed to get some in my hair. No, there are no photos of that, so don't ask.

Later in the day, after we got back from lunch, I decided to use a different tactic. I just went ahead and started covering the edges of the hole at the bottom of the roof box, and as the foam stiffened, I added another layer. I continued this working my way in to the center to completely seal up the bottom of the box. It is ugly, and looks like something from a B grade horror movie, but the technique seems to have been effective. I finished that up tonight.

The large pipe on the left, is the vent for the septic. The pipe in the middle, near where the metal joist work crosses, is the pipe that will be the exhaust for the water heater. On the right, not easy to see since the end is covered with a bag to keep it clean, is the dryer vent pipe.

Matt and I were getting set to cut some boards for the utility room, when dad and mom showed up. Matt and I had laid out the next set of utility room boards for mom, so we got her some fresh primer, and she started rolling. With three of us there (dad, Matt and I) we decided to start getting the doors into the garage installed. We started with the double doors from the utility room. We had never unpacked these, so we moved them over into the utility room, and started figuring out which way they would have to go. We debated whether they should swing into the garage or into the utility room. Since there were moldings on the one side, we decided that those really would have to be able to go against the studs on the utility room side. So the doors would swing out into the garage. As we were discussing things about the install, I kept looking at the doors, and at the opening. The opening didn't look big enough. We checked what the packaging said the opening should be, and we measured the opening, and it was a couple inches too short! We thought, maybe the door will fit in if we put it in turned one way or the other. We took off the packaging, and measure the smallest hight, and nope, it was not going to fit. We had to modify the framing to make it fit. 5 pieces of 2 x 6 had been attached together over this door. With this being a non load bearing wall, there was no way all that was needed, so we remove a couple of them, and then the door would fit. About half an hour to 45 minutes wasted in that effort. But we managed to get them in.

Looking from the garage.

And, from inside the utility room.

This will help reduce the amount of air and humidity that flows into the rest of the house, when we open the garage door, and it gets a large item out of the way, so we don't have to move it, or work around it now.